THE DOMINO EFFECT OF EDUCATION
The educational system is a pathway to a students' education, which is the importance of an individual being able to follow his or her dreams. Lately, one thing leads to another, such as country-wide budget cuts, and we watch this disaster continue to spiral out of control. The public school systems' self-worth declines, and just like a domino effect, teachers are being laid off, classrooms are becoming overcrowded, and teachers are overworked. Disruptions begin with classroom curriculum and frustrations mount between teachers, students and parents.
It is no hidden secret that the United States' public school system is struggling to stay afloat. Major budget cuts occur and teachers continue to be laid off. This all leads to teacher/student ratio problems and classrooms becoming overcrowded. Teachers can’t provide the one-on-one time with students, especially those who need that little extra push.
Layoff is the temporary or permanent removal of a worker from his or her job, usually because of cutbacks in production or corporate reorganization; dismissal of a job or responsibilities; a less severe form of involuntary termination. Each year we rumors of teachers having the threat of layoffs. This is hard on all teachers: they ones laid off worry about seeking other teacher opportunities and the teachers that remain go through changes as well. With the economy in decline, we are seeing more and more teacher layoffs in our educational system.
"Though many of the warnings may not be acted upon--school systems, their budget outlook unclear, routinely overstate likely layoffs at this time of year--when layoffs do occur, they cause a chaotic annual reshuffling of staff members. Thousands of teachers are forced to change schools, grades or subjects, creating a chronic instability that educators call “teacher churn.” (The New York Times, March 30, 2011) And according to Michael Casserly, the counsel’s executive director, “The churn caused by layoffs can be extremely disruptive and hurt student achievement." (The New York Times, March 30, 2011)
When teachers have above average teacher/student ratio, it makes it a difficult task to have one-on-one time or to be able to figure out each student’s individual needs, weaknesses and strengths. How are teachers able to provide a proper education to our children when the classrooms become overcrowded? When you walk into a classroom during special school events and/or conferences and see all the students desks and chairs, do you ever put yourself in the teacher's place? Would you be able to handle that many students, 5 days a week for six-plus hours a day? Would you be able to remember all the children’s names? It is, in my opinion, that having to manage all these children at one time would be a hard task, but then we have to also factor a teacher being able to control all the students and manage bad behavior and talking with overcrowded classrooms as well.
Overcrowded classrooms not only affect the teacher, but the students as well. How do students concentrate within an overcrowded classroom? Doesn’t our government realize how the education budget cuts are affecting the students and their futures? In an overcrowded classroom you will have misbehaved classmates that, in turn, make the other students miss out on part of their daily education. Even well-behaved students have distractions and students cannot concentrate when there is so much going on while a teacher is trying to teach his or her lessons. In addition, due to overcrowding of classrooms, there are other factors that need to be taken into consideration. What about the extended lunch periods that take away from learning time, not to mention the lack of supplies, hallway space, and limited locker availability? When we bundle all these factors into one, we see an increase of failures.
Teachers already have very limited time in each subject with a normal class schedule. What once would have been a job for two individual teachers has now become the duty of a single teacher. Teachers have eventually become overworked.
How many times have you heard a teacher say that they are overworked? I can’t even imagine being a teacher in today’s society. With drastic budget cuts, this is yet another side effect to our educational system. When layoffs occur, more duties are being assigned to the employed facilitator. Teachers have to pick up the slack for numerous duties in the classroom. We see and hear more about teachers; they are underpaid for doing all this work. If you are wondering how they could possibly be overworked, then let us think about all the teacher’s responsibilities in the classrooms: maintaining an overcrowded classroom, preparing class curriculum, parent teacher conferences, piles of papers to grade, tests to prepare, juggling extra-curricular activities, such as art, music, etc. Teachers run around like chickens with their heads cut off throughout the week, but they do all of this because they love children and want to make an educational difference in their life.
This also causes the student (s) to be affected as well. The morale has now dropped in the classroom causing a explosion of tension between teachers and students. We must consider what negative affects this has to our children’s education. After all the students must remember they are not the ones that started this tenacious situation.
A student’s normal class schedule consists of reading, English, math, history, science, music and/or gym. Sometimes there may be a student (s) that struggles grasping a certain subject. The student (s) are then pulled out of the classroom during normal class curriculum and placed in a LAP program. This is the beginning of the disruptions.
Today this seems to be the routine as students continue to be pulled out of the classroom during normal class time for special education, speech, and IEP programs for math and reading. I realize that some children have learning disabilities and that is what the services are provided for, but how are these students receiving proper education in all subjects? For instance, there were students in Kitsap County that attended fifth grade last year. The children were having reading comprehension problems and weren’t grasping the math lessons prepared by the teacher. The students having struggles were having class time disrupted during normal class curriculum and were not required to have history or science classes. Reading Recovery fell during the history lesson and Math IEP fell during the science lesson. Why can’t the classes be rearranged so that reading class is going on during Reading Recovery and math in the classroom be the same time as Math IEP classes? When the parents met with the teacher and principal, according to them, parents were not supposed to worry, because history and science for elementary students is a brief
overview for them and it would be revisited in junior and senior high school. In addition, these children are spending more time moving from class to class, verses staying in their normal classroom getting more out of education with everyday class curriculum. Yet again, we have to ask ourselves yet again, are these students receiving full opportunity let alone a fair education? For teachers, this is also a disruptive event. Not only is this process disruptive to the other classmates, but now the teachers have a hard time instructing when students are being pulled out of class each day. With all things we do, time management is the main key. So maybe teachers should have extra training in effective classroom management to help reduce a child from missing out on so much regular class curriculum throughout the week.
Teacher frustration, from being overworked to having numerous class disruptions, overflows to the students. This frustration, in turn, overflows to the parents, then back to the teacher again, creating a vicious cycle.
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